CHAPTER XVII! ! !GENEALOGY AND EUGENICS!

CHAPTER XVII!
!
!GENEALOGY AND EUGENICS!
!
Scientific plant breeders to-day have learned that their success often
!depends on the care with which they study the genealogy of their plants.

!Live-stock breeders admit that their profession is on a sure scientific basis only to the extent that the genealogy of the animals used is known.

!Human genealogy is one of the oldest manifestations of man's intellectual activity, but until recently it has been subservient to sentimental purposes, or pursued from historical or legal motives. Biology has had no place in it.

Genealogy, however, has not altogether escaped the re-examination which all sciences received after the Darwinian movement revolutionised modern thought. Numerous ways have been pointed out in which it could be brought into line with the new way of looking at man and his world. The field of genealogy has already been invaded at many points by
!biologists, seeking the furtherance of their own aims.

It will be worth while to discuss briefly the relations between the conventional genealogy and eugenics. It may be that genealogy could become an even more valuable branch of human knowledge than it now is,
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!if it were more closely aligned with biology. In order to test this possibility, one must inquire:

!What is genealogy?

!What does it now attempt to do?

!What faults, from the eugenist's standpoint, seem to exist in present genealogical methods?

!What additions should be made to the present methods?

!What can be expected of it, after it is revised in accordance with the ideas of the eugenist?

The answer to the first question, "What is genealogy?" may be brief. Genealogy may be envisaged from several points. It serves history. It has a legal function, which is of more consequence abroad than in America. It has social significance, in bolstering family pride and creating a feeling of family solidarity--this is perhaps its chief
office in the United States. It has, or can have, biological significance, and this in two ways: either in relation to pure science or applied science. In connection with pure science, its function is to furnish means for getting knowledge of the laws of heredity. In application, its function is to furnish a knowledge of the inherited
characters of any given individual, in order to make it possible for the individual to find his place in the world and, in particular, to marry wisely. It is obvious that the use of genealogy in the applied science of eugenics is dependent on previous research by geneticists; for
!marriage matings which take account of heredity can not be made unless the mode of inheritance of human traits has previously been discovered.

!The historical, social, legal and other aspects of genealogy do not concern the present discussion. We shall discuss only the biological aspect; not only because it alone is germane to the present book, but because we consider it to have by far the greatest true value, accepting the criterion of value as that which increases the welfare of mankind. By this criterion, the historical, legal and social aspects of genealogy will be seen, with a little reflection, to be of secondary importance to its biological aspect.

Genealogy now is too often looked upon as an end in itself. It would be recognised as a science of much greater value to the world if it were considered not an end but a means to a far greater end than it alone can supply. It has, indeed, been contended, even by such an authority as Ottokar Lorenz, who is often called the father of modern scientific genealogy, that a knowledge of his own ancestry will tell  each individual exactly what he himself is. This appears to be the basis of Lorenz's valuation of genealogy. It is a step in the right direction:
!but

The present methods of genealogy are inadequate to support such a


!claim. Its methods are still based mainly on the historical, legal and social functions. A few of the faults of method in genealogy, which the eugenist most deplores, are:

!The information which is of most value is exactly that which genealogy ordinarily does not furnish. Dates of birth, death and marriage of an ancestor are of interest, but of limited biological importance. The facts about that ancestor which vitally concern his living descendant are the facts of his character, physical and mental; and these facts are given in very few genealogies.

!Genealogies are commonly too incomplete to be of real value. Sometimes they deal only with the direct male line of ascent--the line that bears the family name, or what animal breeders call the tail-male. In this case, it is not too much to say that they are nearly devoid of genuine value. It is customary to imagine that there is some special virtue inherent in that line of descent which carries the family name. Some one remarks, for instance, to Mr. Jones that he seems to be fond of the sea.

!"Yes," he replies, "You know the Joneses have been sailors for many generations."

Such incomplete pedigrees are rarely published nowadays, but in studying historic characters, one frequently finds nothing more than the single
line of ascent in the family name. Fortunately, American genealogies rarely go to this extreme, unless it be in the earliest generations; but
it is common enough for them to deal only with the direct ancestors of the individual, omitting all brothers and sisters of those ancestors.
!Although this simplifies the work of the genealogist immensely, it deprives it of value to a corresponding degree.

As the purpose of genealogy in this country has been largely social, it is to be feared that in too many cases discreditable data have been tacitly omitted from the records. The anti-social individual, the
feeble-minded, the insane, the alcoholic, the "generally no-count," has been glossed over. Such a lack of candor is not in accord with the scientific spirit, and makes one uncertain, in the use of genealogies,
to what extent one is really getting all the facts. There are few
families of any size which have not one such member or more, not many generations removed. To attempt to conceal the fact is not only unethical but from the eugenist's point of view, at any rate, it is a falsification of records that must be regarded with great disapproval.
!At present it is hard to say to what extent undesirable traits occur in the most distinguished families; and it is of great importance that this should be learned.

In this connection it is again worth noting that a really great man is rarely found in an ancestry devoid of ability. This was pointed out in the first chapter, but is certain to strike the genealogist's attention forcibly. Abraham Lincoln is often quoted as an exception; but more recent studies of his ancestry have shown that he is not really an


exception; that, as Ida M. Tarbell[162] says, "So far from his later career being unaccounted for in his origin and early history, it is as fully accounted for as is the case of any man." The Lincoln family was one of the best in America, and while Abraham's own father was an eccentric person, he was yet a man of considerable force of character,
by no means the "poor white trash" which he is often represented to have been. The Hanks family, to which the Emancipator's mother belonged, had also maintained a high level of ability in every generation;
!furthermore, Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks, the parents of Abraham Lincoln, were first cousins.

The more difficult cases, for the eugenist, are rather to be found in such ancestries as those of Louis Pasteur and Michael Faraday.
Pasteur[163] might perhaps be justly considered the greatest man France has ever produced; his father was a non-commissioned soldier who came of a long line of tanners, while his mother's family had been gardeners for generations. Faraday, who is worthy to be placed close to Charles
Darwin among eminent Englishmen, was the son of a blacksmith and a farmer's daughter. Such pedigrees are striking; and yet, as Frederick
Adams Woods has remarked, they ought to strengthen rather than to weaken one's belief in the force of heredity. When it is considered how rarely
such an ancestry produces a great man, it must be fairly evident that his greatness is due to an accidental conjunction of favourable traits,
!as the modern theory of genetics holds; and that greatness is not due to the inheritance of acquired characters, on which hypothesis Pasteur and Faraday would indeed be difficult to explain.

!Cases of this sort, even though involving much less famous people, will be found in almost every genealogy, and add greatly to the interest of its study, as well as offering valuable data to the professional geneticist.

Even if the information it furnishes were more complete, human genealogy would not justify the claims sometimes made for it as a science, because, to use a biological phrase, "the matings are not controlled." The results of a certain experiment are exhibited, but can not be interpreted unless one knows what the results would have been, had the preceding conditions been varied in this way or in that way. These controlled experiments can be made in plant and animal breeding;
they have been made by the thousand, by the hundred thousand, for many years. They can not be made in human society. It is, of course, not desirable that they should be made; but the consequence is that the biological meaning of human history, the real import of genealogy, can not be known unless it is interpreted in the light of modern plant and animal breeding. It is absolutely necessary that genealogy go into partnership with genetics, the general science of heredity. If a spirit
!of false pride leads genealogists to hold aloof from these experiments, they will make slow progress. The interpretation of genealogy in the light of modern research in heredity through the experimental breeding of plants and animals is full of hope; without such light, it will be discouragingly slow work.


Genealogists are usually proud of their pedigrees; they usually have a right to be. But their pride should not lead them to scorn the pedigrees
!of some of the peas, and corn, snapdragons and sugar beets, bulldogs and Shorthorn cattle, with which geneticists have been working during the last generation; for these humble pedigrees may throw more light on their own than a century of research in purely human material.

The science of genealogy will not have full meaning and full value to those who pursue it, unless they bring themselves to look on men and women as organisms subject to the same laws of heredity and variation as other living things. Biologists were not long ago told that it was
!essential for them to learn to think like genealogists. For the purpose of eugenics, neither science is complete without the other; and we believe that it is not invidious to say that biologists have been quicker to realise this than have genealogists. The Golden Age of genealogy is yet to come.

![There now exists many companies that provide the adequate services wanted to trace the DNA and Family history of any family. At the time of editing -MC]

!With these changes, genealogy would become the study of heredity, rather than the study of lineage.

It is not meant to say that the study of heredity is nothing more than applied genealogy. As understood nowadays, it includes mathematical and biological territory which must always be foreign to genealogy. It might
!be said that in so far as man is concerned, heredity is the interpretation of genealogy, and eugenics the application of heredity. Genealogy should give its students a vision of the species as a great group of ever-changing, interrelated organisms, a great network originating in the obscurity of the past, stretching forward into the obscurity of the future, every individual in it organically related to every other, and all of them the heritors of the past in a very real sense.

Genealogists do well in giving a realisation of the importance of the family, but they err if they base this teaching altogether on the family's pride in some remote ancestor who, even though he bore the family name and was a prodigy of virtues, probably counts for very little in the individual's make-up to-day. To take a concrete though wholly imaginary illustration: what man would not feel a certain
satisfaction in being a lineal descendant of George Washington? And yet, if the Father of his Country be placed at only four removes from the living individual, nothing is more certain than that this hypothetical living individual had fifteen other ancestors in George Washington's generation, any one of whom may play as great or a greater part in his ancestry; and so remote are they all that, as a statistical average, it
is calculated that the contribution of George Washington to the ancestry of the hypothetical living individual would be perhaps not more than one-third of 1% of the total. The small influence of one of these remote ancestors may be seen at a glance, if a chart of all the ancestors up to


the generation of the great hero is made. In more remote generations, the probable biological
influence of the ancestor becomes practically nil. Thus Americans who trace their descent to some royal personage of England or the Continent, a dozen generations ago, may get a certain amount of spiritual satisfaction out of the relationship, but they certainly can derive
little real help, of a hereditary kind, from this ancestor. And when
one goes farther back,--as to William the Conqueror, who seems to rank with the Mayflower immigrants as a progenitor of many descendants--the claim of descent becomes really a joke. If 24 generations have elapsed between the present and the time of William the Conqueror, every individual living to-day must have had living in the epoch of the Norman conquest not less than sixteen million ancestors. Of course, there was
!no such number of people in all England and Normandy, at that time, hence it is obvious that the theoretical number has been greatly reduced in every generation by consanguineous marriages, even though they were between persons so remotely related that they did not know they were related. C. B. Davenport, indeed, has calculated that most persons of the old American stock in the United States are related to each other not more remotely than thirtieth cousins, and a very large proportion as closely as fifteenth cousins.

!At any rate, it must be obvious that the ancestors of any person of old American stock living to-day must have included practically all the inhabitants of England and Normandy, in the eleventh century. Looking at the pedigree from the other end, William the Conqueror must have living to-day at least 16,000,000 descendants. Most of them can not trace back their pedigrees, but that does not alter the fact.

!Such considerations give one a vivid realisation of the brotherhood of man; but they can hardly be said to justify any great pride in descent from a family of crusaders for instance, except on purely sentimental grounds.

!Descent from a famous man or woman should not be disparaged. It is a matter of legitimate pride and congratulation. But claims for respect made on that ground alone are, from a biological point of view, negligible, if the hero is several generations removed. What Sir Francis Galton wrote of the peers of England may, with slight alterations, be given general application to the descendants of famous people:

"An old peerage is a valueless title to natural gifts, except so far as
!it may have been furbished up by a succession of wise intermarriages.... I cannot think of any claim to respect, put forward in modern days, that is so entirely an imposture as that made by a peer on the ground of descent, who has neither been nobly educated, nor has any eminent kinsman within three degrees."

But, some one may protest, are we not shattering the very edifice of which we are professed defenders, in thus denying the force of heredity?
Not at all. We wish merely to emphasise that a man has sixteen
great-great-grandparents, instead of one, and that those in the maternal


lines are too often overlooked, although from a biological point of view they are every bit as important as those in the paternal lines. And we wish further to emphasise the point that it is the near relatives who, on the whole, represent what one is. The great family which for a generation or two makes unwise marriages, must live on its past reputation and see the work of the world done and the prizes carried away by the children of wiser matings. No family can maintain its eugenic rank merely by the power of inertia. Every marriage that a
!member of the family makes is a matter of vital concern to the future of the family: and this is one of the lessons which a broad science of genealogy should inculcate in every youth.

In addition to their importance to society, a knowledge of the traits of a pedigree has a great direct importance to the individual; one of the
most valuable things to be learned from that knowledge is the answer to the question, "What shall a boy or girl do? What career shall one lay
out for one's children?" A knowledge of the child's inborn nature, such as can be had only through study of his ancestry, will guide those who have his education in hand, and will further guide those who decide, or help the child decide, what work to take up in life. This helps to put
!the problem of vocational guidance on a sound basis,--the basis of the individual's inherent aptitudes.

Not too much must be expected from vocational guidance at the present time, but in the case of traits that are inherited, it is a fair
!inference that a child is more likely to be highly endowed with a trait which both parents possess, than with one that only one parent possesses. "Among the traits which have been said to occur in some such direct hereditary way," H. L. Hollingworth[164] observes, "or as the result of unexplained mutation or deviation from type, are: mathematical aptitude, ability in drawing,[165] musical composition,[166] singing, poetic reaction, military strategy, chess playing. Pitch discrimination seems to depend on structural factors which are not susceptible of improvement by practice.[167] The same may be said of various forms of professional athletic achievement. Colour blindness seems to be an instance of the conspicuous absence of such a unit characteristic."

Again, the knowledge of ancestry is an essential factor in the wise selection of a husband or wife. Insistence has been laid on this point in an earlier chapter of this book, and it is not necessary here to repeat what was there said. But it seems certain that ancestry will steadily play a larger part in marriage selection in the future; it is
!at least necessary to know that one is not marrying into a family that carries the taint of serious hereditary defect, even if one knows nothing more. An intelligent study of genealogy will do much, we believe, to bring about the intelligent selection of the man or woman with whom one is to fall in love.

In addition to these general considerations, it is evident that genealogy, properly carried out, would throw light on most of the
specific problems with which eugenics is concerned, or which fall in the field of genetics. A few examples of these problems may be mentioned, in


!addition to those which are discussed in various other chapters of this book.

!The supposed inferiority of first-born children has been debated at some length during the last decade, but is not yet wholly settled. It appears possible that the first-born may be, on the average, inferior both physically and mentally to the children who come directly after him; on the other hand, the number of first-born who attain eminence is greater than would be expected on the basis of pure chance. More data are needed to clear up this problem.[168]

The advantage to a child of being a member of a large or small family is a question of importance. In these days of birth control, the argument is frequently heard that large families are an evil of themselves, the children in them being handicapped by the excessive child-bearing of the mother. The statistics cited in support of this
claim are drawn from the slums, where the families are marked by poverty and by physical and mental inferiority. It can easily be shown, by a
study of more favoured families, that the best children come from the large fraternities. In fact Alexander Graham Bell found evidence,[169] in his investigation of the Hyde Family in America, that the families of 10 or more children were those which showed the greatest longevity.
!In this connection, longevity is of course a mark of vitality and physical fitness.

!The question of the effect of child-bearing on the mother is equally important, since exponents of birth control are urging that mothers should not bear more children than they desire. A. O. Powys' careful study[170] of the admirable vital statistics of New South Wales showed that the mothers who lived longest were those who bore from five to seven children.

The age at which men and women should marry has not yet been sufficiently determined, on biological grounds. Statistics so far compiled do not indicate that the age of the father has any direct influence on the character of the children, but the age of the mother undoubtedly exercises a strong influence on them. Thus it is now well established[171] that infant mortality is lowest among the children of young mothers,--say from 20 to 25 years of age,--and that delay in child-bearing after that age penalises the children. There
!is also some evidence that, altogether apart from the infant mortality, the children of young mothers attain a greater longevity than do those of older women. More facts are needed, to show how much of this effect is due to the age of the mother, how much to her experience, and how much to the influence of the number of children she has previously borne.

Assortative mating, consanguineous marriage, the inheritance of a tendency to disease, longevity, sex-linked heredity, sex-determination, the production of twins, and many other problems of interest to the general public as well as to the biologist, are awaiting the collection
of fuller data. All such problems will be illuminated, when more


!genealogies are kept on a biological basis.

Here, however, an emphatic warning against superficial investigation must be uttered. The medical profession has been particularly hasty, many times, in reporting cases which were assumed to demonstrate heredity. The child was so and so; it was found on inquiry that the father was also so and so: it was heredity.
Such a method of investigation is calculated to bring genetics
into disrepute, and would hazard the credit of genealogy. As a fact, one case counts for practically nothing as proof of hereditary influence; even half a dozen or a dozen may be of no significance. There are two ways in which genealogical data can be analysed to deduce biological laws: one is based on the application of statistical and graphic methods to the data, and needs some hundreds of cases to be of value; the other is by pedigree-study, and needs at least three generations of pedigree, usually covering numerous collaterals, to offer important results. It is not to be supposed that anyone with a sufficiently complete record of
his own ancestry would necessarily be able by inspection to deduce from it any important contribution to science. But if enough complete family records are made available, the professional geneticist can be called
!into cooperation, can supplement the human record with his knowledge of the results achieved by carefully controlled animal and plant breeding, and between them, the genealogist and the geneticist can in most cases arrive at the truth. That such truth is of the highest importance to any family, and equally to society as a whole, must be evident.

Let the genealogist, then, bring together data on every trait he can think of. As a guide and stimulus, he should read the opening chapters of Herbert's Spencer's Autobiography, or of Karl Pearson's, Life,
Letters and Labors of Sir Francis Galton, or C. B. Davenport's
study[172] of C. O. Whitman, one of the foremost American biologists. He will also find help in Bulletin No. 13 of the Eugenics Record Office,
Cold Spring Harbor, Long Island, New York. It is entitled, How to Make a Eugenical Family Study, and gives a list of questions which should be answered, and points which should be noted. With some such list as this,
or even with his own common-sense, the genealogist may seek to ascertain as much as possible about the significant facts in the life of his
!ancestors, bearing in mind that the geneticist will ask two questions about every trait mentioned:

!Is this characteristic inherited?

!If so, how?

!Nor must it be forgotten that the geneticist is often as much interested in knowing that a given character is not inherited under certain conditions, as that it is.

It is highly desirable that genealogists should acquire the habit of stating the traits of their subjects in quantitative terms. They too
often state that a certain amount is "much"; what should be told is "how much." Instead of saying that an individual had fairly good health, tell


exactly what diseases he had during his lifetime; instead of remarking that he was a good mathematician, tell some anecdote or fact that will allow judgment of the extent of his ability in this line. Did he keep record of his bank balance in his head instead of on paper? Was he fond of mathematical puzzles? Did he revel in statistics? Was the study of calculus a recreation to him? Such things probably will appear trivial
!to the genealogist, but to the eugenist they are sometimes important.

!Aside from biology, or as much of it as is comprised in eugenics, genealogy may also serve medicine, jurisprudence, sociology, statistics, and various other sciences as well as the ones which it now serves. But in most cases, such service will have a eugenic aspect. The alliance between eugenics and genealogy is so logical that it can not be put off much longer.

!Genealogists are all familiar with the charge of long standing that genealogy is a subject of no use, a fad of a privileged class. They do not need to be told that such a charge is untrue. But genealogy can be made a much more useful science than it now is, and it will be at the same time more interesting to its followers, if it is no longer looked upon as an end in itself, nor solely as a minister to family pride. We hope to see it regarded as a handmaid of evolution, just as are the other sciences; we hope to see it linked with the great biological movement of the present day, for the betterment of mankind.

So much for the science as a whole. What can the individual do? Nothing better than to broaden his outlook so that he may view his family not as an exclusive entity, centred in a name, dependent on some illustrious man or men of the past; but rather as an integral part of the great
fabric of human life, its warp and woof continuous from the dawn of creation and criss-crossed at each generation. When he gets this vision, he will desire to make his family tree as full as possible, to include
his collaterals, to note every trait which he can find on record, to
preserve the photographs and measurements of his own contemporaries, and to take pleasure in feeling that the history of his family is a
!contribution to human knowledge, as well as to the pride of the family.

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If the individual genealogist does this, the science of genealogy will become a useful servant of the whole race, and its influence, not confined to a few, will be felt by all, as a positive, dynamic force helping them to lead more worthy lives in the short span allotted to them, and helping them to leave more worthy posterity to carry on the
!names they bore and the sacred thread of immortality, of which they were for a time the custodians.